EdiGene and Arbor Biotechnologies Announce Worldwide Non-exclusive License Agreement to Advance Ex Vivo Engineered Cell Therapy Programs

BEIJING & CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--EdiGene, Inc., a global biotechnology company focused on translating gene-editing technologies into transformative therapies for patients with serious genetic diseases and cancer, announced a non-exclusive, worldwide license agreement with Arbor Biotechnologies, a biotechnology company discovering and developing the next generation of genetic medicines, to access Arbor’s proprietary CRISPR gene editing technology for certain ex vivo engineered cell therapy programs in the field of oncology.

“Partnering with leading engineered cell therapy developers is a key component of Arbor’s strategy to broaden the potential of our CRISPR discovery engine beyond our wholly-owned in vivo genetic medicine approaches for the benefit of even more patients,” said Devyn Smith, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Arbor. “We look forward to expanding the global impact of Arbor's proprietary gene editing technologies through our partnership with EdiGene.”

The licensed technology is a part of Arbor’s proprietary CRISPR gene-editing portfolio, which is tailored to address the underlying pathology of genetic diseases.

“It has been great working with Arbor’s team in the past year to optimize ways of integrating Arbor’s proprietary CRISPR system into our ex vivo platforms,” said Dong Wei, Ph.D., CEO of EdiGene. “This partnership will expand EdiGene’s gene-editing toolkit and strengthen our capabilities to advance ongoing ex vivo gene-editing cell therapy programs for multiple serious diseases. We look forward to collaborating with Arbor to achieve our shared commitment to developing innovative therapies to address unmet medical needs.”

Under the agreement, EdiGene will pay Arbor certain upfront, milestone payments, commercial payments upon the achievement of certain development and sales milestones, and tiered royalties on net sales of royalty-bearing EdiGene products.

About EdiGene, Inc

EdiGene is a global, clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on translating gene editing technologies into transformative therapies for patients with serious genetic diseases and cancer. The company has established its proprietary ex vivo genome-editing platforms for hematopoietic stem cells and T cells, in vivo therapeutic platform based on RNA base editing, and high-throughput genome-editing screening to discover novel targeted therapies. Founded in 2015, EdiGene is headquartered in Beijing, with offices in Guangzhou and Shanghai, China and Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. More information can be found at www.EdiGene.com.

About Arbor Biotechnologies

Arbor Biotechnologies is a life sciences company discovering and developing the next generation of genetic medicines based on wholly owned genomic editors discovered from its machine learning/AI driven discovery platform. Since its founding in 2016 by Feng Zhang, David Walt, David Scott and Winston Yan, Arbor has built the most extensive toolbox of proprietary genomic editors in the industry. Using the discovery platform, Arbor can discover, screen, and engineer novel editing enzymes and effectors that can then be tailored to the underlying cause of disease to result in potentially curative medicines for patients. As Arbor continues to advance its pipeline toward the clinic with an initial focus in liver and CNS disease, the Company has also partnered with leading companies on several gene editing and ex vivo cell therapy programs to broaden the reach of its novel nuclease technology. For more information, visit arbor.bio.

EdiGene, Inc.
Xiaomeng Zhang
+86 10-80733899
media@edigene.com

Arbor Biotechnologies
Amy Bonanno
(914) 450-0349
abonanno@soleburytrout.com